Unarmed for the Election

Arnold Schwarzenegger doesn't know the basics of California gun laws

Arnold Schwarzenegger's recent appearance on
the Sean
Hannity Show regarding gun control suggests that he is amazingly
ignorant of current gun laws in California.

Hannity asked Schwarzenegger what he thought of the "assault-weapon"
ban and the Brady Bill. Schwarzenegger replied, "Yes I do support
that. And also I would like to close the loophole on the gun shows."

While the federal ban on so-called "assault weapons" is scheduled
to sunset in September 2004, the much more severe California
prohibition has no sunset date. The federal and the state law are
both based on cosmetics —
on the idea that a gun is bad if it has a bayonet lug, or other
small features that have nothing to do with the gun's firepower.

Schwarznegger also endorsed the Brady Bill — which never affected
California gun sales, because the state's gun laws were more
restrictive than the requirements of the 1993 Brady Bill. And these
California restrictions are why Schwarzenegger's comment about gun
shows was so appallingly uninformed.

In 1989, the California legislature passed, and Governor George
Deukmejian signed, a bill that abolished gun-owner privacy and
eliminated private gun sales. As a result, every gun transfer
must be routed through a licensed firearms dealer, and must receive
prior approval from the government. This even applies if a man wants
to buy a Christmas present for a friend, or if two members of a
target-shooting club want to trade guns, of if a retired hunter
wants to give his old gun to a young friend as a college graduation
present.

There are a few small exceptions to the California law against
private transfers; gifts among close relatives are still allowed.
However, the law contains no exception for gun shows.

So, for example, if a hunter owns five shotguns, and decides to
sell three of them to help pay for his family's summer vacation, he
might rent a table at a gun show one weekend. Under federal law, the
man is not in the business of selling firearms, so the laws about
firearms dealers do not apply to him: He does not have to fill out
federal paperwork, nor is he required to call the FBI for permission
to sell a gun to a particular buyer.

The laws of most states, like federal law, distinguish firearms
dealers (who are engaged in the business) from occasional, casual
sellers (who are not in the business). These federal and state laws
apply equally no matter where a gun sale takes place. If you are
engaged in the firearms business, then the federal and state
requirements apply to you regardless of whether you sell a gun from
a storefront, from a home business, or at a gun show. Conversely, if
you are not in the firearms business, the laws applying to you are
the same whether you are at a gun show, a gun club, a home, or
anywhere else.

Thus, the "gun-show
loophole," is a fiction invented by the gun-prohibition lobbies.
Gun shows are not some kind of armed Brigadoon, where gun laws
magically vanish for the weekend. The laws about selling guns at gun
shows are exactly the same as the laws for selling guns anywhere
else.

In California, where privacy for gun sales was abolished 14 years
ago, there is certainly no "gun-show loophole." If a Californian who
owns one gun wants to sell it at a gun show, he will have to pay a
fee to a licensed firearms dealer at the gun show; the dealer will
contact the California Department of Justice, and if the DOJ
approves, the sale may be consummated a few weeks later. The same
procedure would apply to any other firearms transfer by a California
citizen.

So in other words, the "loophole" that Schwarzenegger "would like
to close" was actually closed 14 years ago. How much more
contemptuously ignorant can a candidate get? Surrounded by
high-priced advisers and consultants, Schwarzenegger apparently
cannot hire anyone who will explain to him the elementary facts of
California gun law.

On The Larry Elder Show, Schwarzenegger said that he
thinks there should be a law for mandatory gunlocks. Apparently
Schwarzenegger has no idea that California enacted such a law
several years ago. It was this law which led directly to the death
of two children in Merced, California, in August 2000. When an
insane killer with a pitchfork attacked their home, their older
sister — who was a trained shooter — was unable to protect them
because the family guns were
locked in a safe.

If during the campaign Schwarzenegger will not bother to learn
simple facts about gun law, what is the likelihood that he would pay
any more attention after being elected governor?

California's
gun laws are over 158,000-words long (about twice the size of
all the federal gun laws, combined). When the California legislature
passes a gun bill, the bill often involves technical changes to an
already hyper-complex law. A governor making a decision to sign or
veto the bill must be able to understand the legal analysis of the
bill, and to make his own evaluation of his staff's recommendation.
Given Schwarzenegger's willful obliviousness to the easy part of the
California gun laws, it is unlikely he could ever make a
well-informed decision about the law's many complexities. It seems
more likely that he would just go along with his
vehemently antigun wife, and sign any antigun bill the
legislature passed.

Schwarzenegger does claim to support the Second Amendment, but do
Charles Schumer and Rudolph Giuliani, both of whom find their
support of the Second Amendment compatible with their support of
every antigun law which has any political viability.

Of course most of Schwarzenegger's competitors (past and present)
in this recall race haven't been very impressive on the gun issue
either. According to veteran firearms lobbyist and activist
Neal Knox,
Peter Ueberroth "did his best to torpedo all Olympic shooting when
he headed the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics."

Governor Gray Davis has signed a string of very repressive laws
restricting gun-owner rights. Neal Knox
reports
that if Davis survives the recall, California Democrats will make a
push for handgun prohibition, and may succeed.

The only serious candidate in the California governor's race who
supports Second Amendment rights is State Senator Tom McClintock. As
demonstrated by McClintock's June 2001
speech on freedom and firearms, McClintock analyzes the gun
issue in a very profound way.

He accurately connects the gun-control movement to the "despotic
principle" popularized by the 19th-century German philosophers Marx,
Hegel, and Nietzsche: "rights come not from God, but from the state.
What rights you have are there because government has given them to
you."

McClintock rejects this philosophy, and he recognizes the right
to arms to be one of those inalienable rights "endowed equally to
every human being by the 'laws of nature and of nature's God.'" If a
man has "no right to self-defense," then he is a slave, for his
"rights are at the sufferance of his master — whether that master is
a state or an owner."

Could you imagine Schwarzenegger talking like that? Of him
speaking from his heart about freedom, without having to check his
remarks with his political handlers?

Arnold Schwarzenegger knows how to pretend to use guns in
childish action movies which glamorize gun violence. Tom McClintock
understand that responsible gun ownership is one of the pillars of a
free society.

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